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Millions awarded to brightest research ideas to tackle prostate cancer

From stem cells to bacterial infections, our £2.6 million Research Innovation Awards will fund eight potentially game-changing research projects into our understanding and treatment of prostate cancer to help us meet our ambitious aim of taming the disease within a decade.

Today, we're announcing our first ever Research Innovation Awards to fund the most exciting and potentially life-changing research ideas. The eight new projects are all great examples of what scientists can create when they are given the freedom to be inventive and try ambitious ideas.

Our new research strategy aims to tame prostate cancer in the next decade, and we need research that's equally ambitious to get us there and challenge the status quo.

Among the eight exciting new research projects are efforts to use stem cells as a Trojan horse to deliver a cancer-killing protein to where it’s needed, and an investigation into whether bacterial infections might cause aggressive prostate cancer.

We challenged the research community to think creatively and send us ideas we’d never seen before. We weren’t disappointed

Dr Iain Frame, Director of Research at Prostate Cancer UK, said: "By shifting the science over the next decade, we want to transform prostate cancer into a disease that the next generation of men will not fear.

"We’re delighted to be funding our first ever Research Innovation Awards, which have been made possible thanks to the generous donations of our supporters. We challenged the research community to think creatively and send us ideas we’d never seen before, that could really change the game for men. We weren’t disappointed.

"These pioneering studies are going to play a key role in helping us to achieve our ten-year goal and we’re looking forward to seeing how this research progresses.”

Our eight new research grants

Find out more about each of the exciting new research projects we're funding by clicking on the links below:

How we 'auditioned' for new prostate cancer research with the X factor

With over 60 applicants from scientists all over the UK for our first ever Research Innovation Awards, Deputy Director of Research Dr Matthew Hobbs explains the pressures and difficulties of deciding which projects to give the £2.6million of funding and why he hopes to do even better next year.